Hong Kong is Riddled with Unrest Again

The political situation in Hong Kong (more precisely in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China) has once again fallen under the influence of another “autumn escalation“. One of the most large-scale protests was a mass rally of thousands of students in September-October 2014, which was coined the Umbrella Movement by the Western media. It’s almost a year later and new riots, albeit significantly less serious ones, have taken place. As in 2014-2015, the nature of this stage of political turbulence in Hong Kong is the same. In general, it can be described with the slogan “the price you have to pay for the transition period”. This concerns the difficulties of actual implementing the beautiful concept “One Country – Two Systems” created by Beijing when preparing to regain control over Hong Kong from Great Britain in 1997. Later, this concept was tested out for the possible (hypothetical and elusive) return of the lost province of Taiwan to the bosom of the Motherland.

The procedure of transferring Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China was provided for by the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984 during a visit of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to China. The strained relations between Beijing and Hong Kong are entirely based on events that preceded the handover. It’s important to remember that in the mid-19th century, Hong Kong was under the control of Great Britain following the so-called Opium Wars (which can be considered a “crime against humanity” by today’s standards). The following 150 years, Hong Kong formed a community of citizens that were very different from the citizens in modern-day China both in terms of mentality and living standards. Today, the latter is perhaps the major factor, which determines the mood of Hong Kong’s population. However, the Western media describe the wariness of Hong Kong citizens in respect of the gradual integration into China as a mantra on “the strive for democracy and freedom”. However, the same “fraudsters” that appeared during the decline of the USSR, then in the Middle East, and now in Ukraine, are manipulating the situation with fake ideas of “democracy” and “freedom”. There was no democracy in British Hong Kong. It only started to appear after the accession to the People’s Republic of China. According to many Hong Kong citizens, this is not enough as it currently does not allow it to maintain…